A Nottingham Asda worker has been hailed a hero after he helped rescue a baby from a house fire.
Habeel Khan, 26, was on his rounds when he saw smoke billowing out of a house. He pulled up and saw a woman screaming that her baby was still in the house so he ran into the home to get the seven-week-old baby.
Habeel said: “It was a just a normal day at work for me. I was doing my deliveries in the Stapleford area and when I pulled up and looked over to where the customer’s house was I saw loads of smoke just gushing out of a house.
“My natural instinct was to just run across to the house. I could see loads of smoke and lots of people panicking outside. I shouted ‘is everyone out of the house?’ and that’s when a woman with two young children shouted ‘my baby; my baby’s still in the house.’ I don’t think she had realised until then and then she ran back into the house and I went with her.
“She managed to pick up the baby from a room next to the kitchen where the fire had started, then we ran out.”
Speaking about his accolade from the Being Asda Awards 2019 Habeel said: “I didn’t really think anything of it – I just thought I’d helped out, and had done a little good deed. I don’t think I have done anything heroic at all to be honest. Thankfully everyone was okay in the end and the family are back in the house.”
Habeel’s manager Peter Smith said: “We know him as Smiler. He is always happy. He is always doing the right thing by the customer. He is an absolute asset to the team and a credit to the company.”
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And Asda’s senior vice president of operations Anthony Hemmerdinger praised Habeel for his heroic actions. He said: “What Habeel did was remarkable and it’s not something we would recommend that our colleagues do, however it’s clear that in this instance his instinct kicked in and he did a remarkable job.”
